Today in MusIQ Club!

Some of you came to both Blanchard CMJ classes this week, so I am writing up the class notes together.  Make sure you scroll all the way down to get to home practice suggestions for your child. Everyone:  On Monday and Tuesday we reviewed steps and skips, and Melissa had a quick lesson about intervals.  [...]

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The weather was terrible this morning, and we were missing half the class.  I am still unable to get my car back up my driveway it is so slippery!  I hope everyone was able to make it to school safely, and please be in touch with me about make up classes. The intrepid Melissa was [...]

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O-O-O-O-O-O we were a bit rusty this week, not surprising as we hadn’t met for two weeks and we have been learning a lot of new things lately. Scales continue to improve.  Keep remembering to sit up straight, keep elbows relaxed, and keep your thumbs really flexible for thumb tucks so you don’t need to [...]

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This was our second class in a row with everyone present–Yay!  However, since it had been two weeks because of the MLK Day holiday, we started with a quick review of steps and skips before launching into some rhythmic and melodic playbacks.  Everyone performed brilliantly.  We did EIGHT-BEAT PLAYBACKS with eyes closed!  And then we [...]

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This class is moving very fast, and it’s great to see everyone so excited about the music they are learning.  Today we talked about lines and spaces, as well as steps and skips.  We related them to the blocks on our musical hopscotch, our keyboards, and the lines and spaces on both the Grand Staff [...]

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We did some serious work this week on strategizing how to find notes on our keyboards as well as on the Grand Staff.  The Grand Staff is quite new for Haley, and she’s doing a great job, even reading notes in the Bass Clef and playing with her left hand!  Ryan discovered there is more [...]

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It was a busy class this week.  We talked about lines and spaces, and moved a penny around on a large print out of a grand staff (Tori) and a simple five line staff with a thick line in the middle representing middle C (Alex).  Royson was an excellent reader telling Alex and Tori how [...]

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Happy New Year Everyone!  It was nice to see everyone again and welcome a new student, Grisha!  Everyone arrived at different times this day, so one at a time everyone settled in to a new lesson either picking up where they left off in December, or in Olivia’s case beginning CMJ 2 with a review [...]

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Welcome back Haley!  Haley, Ryan and I had fun at the beginning of class listening to Penny Lane, by the Beatles, and identifying all of the instruments that were played in the piece.  We talked a little about the Beatles, how they were mostly self taught as musicians and were from Liverpool, England.  We’ll keep [...]

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We had a wonderful start to the New Year this week, welcoming a new student, Alex, to class.  Alex dove right into CMJ1 alongside Royson, who dove into CMJ2, and both are off to a great start. After getting acquainted with Mr. Beethoven, Alex moved right through the first couple of lessons and has already [...]

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Congratulations to all of our performers this week, especially to those of you for whom this was your very first recital!  And thank you also to everyone, parents and students, for your commitment to the program.  I was very impressed with how confident everyone is becoming as performers, and how facile even those with the [...]

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Just Ryan and Anna were in class this week as Chloe was still out of town.  We kept Melissa for a while though, and all started to learn Heart and Soul!  We talked about intervals of a third, triads (three note chords), as well as numbering the chords based on which note of the major [...]

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The note names across the tops of the keyboards are now covered up for everyone, and everyone is adjusting very well.  Together we had a brief discussion about Beethoven, which we will continue next week, and everyone listened VERY well while Melissa performed Ode to Joy. This week Tori finished up her lessons with Amy [...]

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We did a lot of repertoire work this week.  Ryan has done a very nice job polishing Ode to Joy and  Old Grey Goose (with two hands!) as well as Row, Row, Row your Boat.  Playing with the metronome was a little stressful, but this will get easier!  Anna also did a great job putting [...]

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Royson had a marathon session this week and has finished all of his work with Ms. Mendelssohn!  Congratulations, Royson!  He is now reading “grown up notes” with stems, and he very quickly picked up on the fact that the stems go up for the right hand playing the higher notes, and down for the left [...]

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Nice job with scales this week, everyone!  Chloe has now mastered the thumb tuck, and worked hard to remember that it is the middle finger that crosses over the thumb on the way back down the scale (with the right hand).  She got it!  Anna has now mastered the C scale in contrary motion, starting [...]

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We welcomed many of the Tuesday students into the Monday class this week, and it was nice to be able to do some of our rhythm games with more people.  Everyone did a nice job making up rhythm sentences and then clapping the rhythms without the sentences.  After a few minutes, no matter how tricky [...]

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Lots of progress this week was had by all!  Congratulations to everyone for their practicing and for thinking about the music they are hearing during the week. This morning we had a little software tutorial, and Melissa, David and Olivia should all be pretty adept at moving around within the program.  One word of caution [...]

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This week in class we reviewed and played the C major scale, playing it all together with a metronome.  Everyone did well when the scale in the right hand went up, but it seemed trickier to keep up with the metronome on the way back down.  It will get easier.  Everyone’s elbows and hand positions [...]

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